Master Thesis - 2018 Business & Design MSc - R. Steens & D. Börjesson Presentation: - description of study - general findings - the first iteration of a new framework *Speaker notes included

3. The innovation, service, and business design consultant industry is depended upon by many various industries to aid in preparing for the future, with an expecta

5. The subject was approached in an inductive manner, by holding semi-structured interviews. The interviews were selectively transcribed on post-its which
were used during a content analysis.

6. The study was conducted using 9 consultancies, different in focus, size, age, and location. All consultancies are anonymised using fictitious names, based on P

7. From those 9 consultancies 13 people participated. One or two from each company.
All had a position which could be regarded as people performing management activities. Among the participants were Senior Designers, Leads and CEOs
The participants were anonymised using persona’s based on their roles and experience, names based on influential designers and faces inspired by some of our form

8. The interview questions explored four topics:
- Management Structures
- Project Management
- Management Activities
- Perception of Management

10. Visually, organisational management is hard because organisations are complex social structures with several dynamic parts. This is the classic visualisation of a com

11. One thing we looked at was how many management layers were present in each case in order to understand how management was structured.

12. The most common managerial structure we observed was based on professional bureaucracy.

13. Three companies stood out in terms of management structure
Glacier used an internal network where each designer was perceived as an independent island.
Satellite and Radiant used a network of freelancers

14. With the professional bureaucracy being the most common there were different versions visible.

15. Some also applied a more divisionalised managerial structure within design consultancies. The most common being to be divisionalised in studios.

16. Within a studio these divisions would often be flat and focus on a specific operation with the strategy and management close to the operating core.

17. Regarding teams there were two common ways of divisionalising within a company or studio

18. The first being: Teams based on expertise
The second: Teams based on size, this was however only present in 1 studio.

20. When inquiring about the use of project managers there were clear distinctions in the answers;
- Having project managers and calling it project management
- Having project managers, not calling them project managers, but instead giving the role a different title
- Not having project managers or project management

21. One interviewee even said..

22. There were four ways teams were assembled. The first three being:

23. - Plan with preset roles, people found for roles
- Collecting people with the right skillset
- Spontaneous throughout the duration of the project

24. The fourth is the use of core teams when assembling project teams. a of mixture of previous ways which often uses plans with preset roles and spontaneous collectio

25. Management activities were often in support of project management and centered around supporting, coaching, and alignment rather than directing.

26. We observed this to be the case even in higher management where cases tried to support rather than direct and create a level playing field, reducing the distan

27. This means that the strategical apex of each moves a lot closer or becomes part of the operational core.

28. In regards to leadership we observed that leadership was often an afterthought. The focus was instead on practical skills abilities and design excellence rather
than being a good leader.
This is often also what drives promotions, being a good designer, but not a good leader which in many cases was expressed to cause problems.

29. The term management was heavily stigmatised in our cases with most connecting it to scientific management and taylorism.

31. We asked all interviewees if they considered themselves as managers.
Only 5 said yes, that they could consider themselves as a manager.

32. Charles from Quartz even says that in the design industry everybody needs to be a manager.

33. Three others said no, but they realised they have a role or position that could be regarded as management.
And the remaining 5 said no, not in any way.

34. We found this interesting and regarded those who said no as reluctant managers. Having a role/position/ tasks that clearly are management related but not rega

35. Designers don’t want to be managed and don’t want to manage.
Management carries a different capacity from design.

36. Being good at your craft does not make you a good manager or leader.

37. Which brings us to our main finding of self-management. Which was explicitly named by 5 cases and implicitly by the remaining cases.
We observed 3 key concepts that merge to support self management.

38. The first: responsibility which empowers and gives designers the feeling of ownership
It’s an important aspect since designers are creative individuals and want to experience creative individuality. Giving responsibility -> decisions are made by
people closest to the task and with most tacit knowledge, Makes managers redundant

39. alignment focuses on creating common ground and a shared understanding of direction.
Common ground and team cognition basically ensures alignment and can be done with little verbal communication.
If everyone is managing themselves, everyone needs to move in the same direction to eliminate inefficiencies.
This might sound like common knowledge but we observed that it is not common practice.

40. How adaptable or formal tools, methods, roles, and support structures are.

41. Different levels and some were averse to rigidity stating that it hinders creativity while others embraced it and said that it structure and rigidity sets you free. Observed

42. it's not about how much rigidity is applied, but where it is applied.
The challenge is not to stifle creativity.

43. Processes are a bit special because they are a rhetorical device for clients as well as a form of rigidity. Then also everything that supports a progress can be seen as

44. Observed 2 forms of support structures, explicit and implicit. Explicit based on the notion of designers having something to fall back on. Implicit is more based on the

45. Based on what we found we explored the interactions between the pieces and developed a first iteration of the framework
so.. first iteration and visualisation of the effects and relations

46. 3 concepts + autonomous team assembly + leadership as the link between the concepts and the team

47. The concepts are what is managed in an organisation. interactions between the concepts:
R+R = comfortable situation for giving away responsibility
R+A = making things simple and explicit
A+R = Confidence in ability to go right direction

48. the effects of the concepts on the autonomous team
R+A= explicit common ground = easy aligning
R+R = Meaningful and purposeful work, standardisation and freedom
A+R+L= Freedom, clarity and direction

49. example:
for all five, team assembly, leadership, responsibility, rigidity, alignment,
Meant to spark conversations with questions and options taken from the empirical.

50. Managing
Design
In Practice